


Another Sunny Afternoon

by waferkya



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Depression, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 12:13:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waferkya/pseuds/waferkya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for ST:ID. <i>What Jim likes, what he craves, is the endless stretch of night all around his ship and over his head, and the freedom that comes.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Sunny Afternoon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [will_p](https://archiveofourown.org/users/will_p/gifts).



i laid down and closed my eyes  
but i forgot to sleep.

 

“Wake up,” he growls at the body that stopped fighting long before it even touched his table. “Wake up,” Leonard says, and his voice sounds hoarse and raw like he’s been screaming his throat bloody, but he’s only whispering.

He never prayed for miracles before, because he’s a doctor, dammit, not a minister, he’s a scientist and what his scalpel and hyposprays and cultures can’t fix, he never dared hoping could be fixed at all.

But today, Jim is dead. Still, quiet and frozen, grey and dull all over, Jim is dead, and Leonard begs. It’s a day of firsts.

“Wake up,” and it’s the third time already and his voice shatters, but it won’t make a difference. He knows, and he knows better than most that hope is a cruel mistress, but he can’t help himself, never could.

Leonard sits, and waits, and loses, cell by cell by cell, everything; he welcomes the feeling like an old friend, a familiar ache, carved deep in his bones.

 

(What Jim likes, what he craves, is the endless stretch of night all around his ship and over his head, and the freedom that comes. He used to dream of it even when he was a kid in the desert, the pitch black silent yawn of space, and he never wanted to wake up—didn’t want to leave that dream that made him feel safe and peaceful and warm.

When his ship’s core spits him out, it’s not velvety black, but white that swallows him up.)

 

He remembers the days when everything felt like a strain, and the mornings were the hardest, because getting out of bed was a thing of bravery—a declaration of war—and Leonard always felt like he had just enough strength to keep himself breathing (to keep himself from wishing he could hold his breath that one moment longer, so he could leave everything behind).

Spinning in circles at the back of his skull was one single thought, _I can’t_ , that Leonard had to push back continuously, because he couldn’t _not_ ; the thing with pride, as twisted and thin and crumples as it can get, is that it’s often a trap.

That same old weariness is back now, and it doesn’t hit Leonard like a bullet, but covers him like rain.

Leonard doesn’t move—where would he even go?—and soon enough he’s soaked in it, dripping and dizzy with it; sitting by the cold shell of Jim Kirk, Leonard shuts his eyes and chooses to be angry.

He wants to cut Jim open and look at the universe he’s sure is hidden inside that chest, count the stars on his ribs, close his hands around the sun of Jim’s heart; crawl into the space in there, because it wouldn’t be as terrifying.

Anger is the easy way out, yet still a tiny bit dignified. Leonard will let it consume and scorch whatever’s left of him—he cannot stand the thought of being anything more than ashes, with Jim lying dead and outrageously cold.

Bones are something, and even something is too much when the perfect bow of Jim’s lips is chapped and dry and broken and silent.

Leonard’s body is fifty-four percent water but his eyes are dry.

Jim stays dead.

 

(A breathless, helpless panic has settled deep in between Jim’s swollen, bruised lungs, and he lets himself be lulled by it to; it’s almost comforting, like Spock’s presence on the other side of the glass.

Jim goes to the black and doesn’t think of Bones—he is tired and broken and scared and done, and none of these things will ever make him think of Bones. Bones is a pile of blankets shying away from the pale morning sunlight stabbing his pillow; Bones is one or two or five drinks too many, too late at night, and leaving the pub from the back door and stumbling home giggling and warm; Bones is twitching eyebrows and eyes rolling from across the room and a tiny smirk that Jim was never meant to see.

Bones is three different alarms in the morning, ringing five minutes from one another with increasingly annoying tunes because Bones might be done and scared and broken and tired, he will still get up and meet the day, and bitching and moaning he will kick the day’s ass—or save it, depending on how much Jim will fuck up.

Bones is the strong scent of the black coffee that Jim took to bring him every morning, when at sunrise he made it back to their room. Because Jim hops from bed to bed to bed to empty classrooms and dark hallways of dorms that are not his own for a set of reason that are not so different from the ones that want to keep Bones grounded to his mattress.

Bones is not Jim Kirk’s last thought.

He is, however, the first, when Jim wakes up.)


End file.
